You're all out there, hanging at the beach, cruising in your classic car, your pocket thick with cash as you scour the pawnshops, music stores and junk shops for hidden Electraish treasures. At night, you're busy playing that three month stand you signed up for at the biggest club in town. Drinks, women, guitars, and music. Hell yeah! Too busy to find some fascinating and obscure Electra factoid to post about... something we can all jump in on.

No? Must be the summertime (NH) blues.

Well here's a little something to look forward to. I'll be posting a sale of the remainder of ozarkcannon's collection in mid to late August. Over his last year, Joe sold the majority of his collection. He understandably had a lot of medical bills accumulating. I don't really know why he chose to sell many of them on eBay but that's how things go. His family has kept some... he had a nephew he was really encouraging as a guitarist, and who is the very proud owner of an X910. His dad has one or two of Joe's Cannon guitars.

I can't list it all now, but it's a real mix of things. From guitars that are in very fine condition, to basket cases I pieced together with as many parts as I can find. There are special effects, on-board mods... a little bit of this and that. There are definitely guitars in every price range. Joe's liscence plate Key hollow body is among them, a super clean Super Magnum (haven't seen one of those in a very long time), great Stratocaster... a mix.

Now this is the real deal. Everything will be listed here first. As of now, the idea is to put them out for bids, high bidder wins plus shipping. But, there's always a but, some will have to have a reserve price. My goal in doing this is to raise as much as I can for Joe's family, while trying at the same time to make this as available as possible for everyone here, Joe's friends ending up with Joe's stuff. I'm not sure how this will work out, but I do have faith that it will. I also will not be posting this at other forums unless the response seems to merit it. If you have any ideas on how to make this work better please write me as I'm open to any suggestions you may have.

I believe I can construct a Cannon guitar as well. Not exactly as Joe had done, but it will be him. More on that one later.

I wish y'all could get to know Joe's Dad like I have been honored to. I've learned a lot about Joe from him. We lost a great friend here, but they lost a son, a brother... he was a lot of things and had a huge range of interests. Can you believe it? Joe was interested in things other than guitars and amps! heh heh......

Alright, that's it for now. Back to the beach with ya.

C.R.

_________________"... can't seem to hit that Bb right."

Last edited by METESKY on Wed Aug 05, 2015 10:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

I hope there's something there that is a do-er upper, eh; I love to have a go at one of Joe's projects....

.... feels a little odd, though, I have to say.

_________________Every guitarist I would cross paths with would tell me that I should have a flashy guitar, whatever the latest fashion model was, and I used to say, 'Why? Mine works, doesn't it? It's a piece of wood and six strings, and it works.'

Yes, plenty of fixer-uppers. There were a number of these that Joe had totally stripped down of parts. I reassembled them with every matching part I could find. He had a heap of spares all jumbled which I'll send out free if I see any Wanted postings for what's in there. Not much in the way of those things we're all on the hunt for. But you never know what you'll need, right?

If you go into the Salon Lofts in Franklin, TN, you'll see a Cannon-finished Workingman hanging up in one of the suites.

Joe sent it to me a few years ago. I took it to the house of the woman I loved and played it for her. Left it there. A few things intervened and I had to let her go. She's engaged to someone else. But she hung the Electra up on the wall where she works. I told her about Joe, told her to keep it.

I asked Joe to build me another one but he was already hurting too much to try. He sold me my X149 a year and a half ago. I miss him, though we were only family in the Electra sense.

I do so apologize for going dark the past couple months. I had every intention of finally putting Joe's remainders up for sale, but...

Why is there always a but? My but is... has been hard for me to talk about. Something Joe and I shared though I'm not in as bad a way as he was. I have a degenerative nervous system disease that plays havoc with my life. No other way to put it. However, the last four years I've been in a state of remission. Started living my life again, till the end of this July, that is. I've been flat down for two months, though I'm making excellent progress right now. Put a lot of things on hold for me.

But... again with the but, I'm finishing up on getting ready to post Joe's things. Shouldn't take long but I'll say three weeks just to be sure. Aside from family and church getting this done is a big thing for me and I aim to get 'er done. This time if I go South I'll make sure someone lets y'all know.

You know, you're a great bunch, and I truly appreciate you and the spirit of this place. It's quite special. Y'all be good now, give thanks for what you have. We have so much to be thankful for. Me? Right now I'm sitting in a room with about eight of my guitars, looking out at the hollow behind my house, trees just starting to turn a little, on an unimaginably beautiful Tennessee afternoon... perfect.

Mate, you keep your powder dry! So sorry to hear of your troubles and ailments; nothing I can do or say from here can possibly make a lick of difference...BUT... know that I'm thinking of you, and Joe, way down here in Australia.

You'll remember it was Joe who went to bat for me and got me my Lady at a knockdown price... for a bloke he only knew through this forum....

Looking forward to seeing what's coming up in the way of fixer-uppers... jeez, that sounds awful, don't it?!

*sigh*

_________________Every guitarist I would cross paths with would tell me that I should have a flashy guitar, whatever the latest fashion model was, and I used to say, 'Why? Mine works, doesn't it? It's a piece of wood and six strings, and it works.'

LOL Fixer-uppers... yeah, John, I can relate to that. Down in my dusty shop I have six or seven of those that came to a halt in August, along with another half-dozen that would more aptly be called basket-cases. About half of all of those require finish work. On my electronics bench I have a '57 Fender Champ waiting for a new O/P transformer, and a Pete Drake Talking Music Actuator. I'm pretty sure those were the first "voice boxes" made to be sold.

I got it in trade wth a pedal steel, and the story I got was that during the "All Things Must Pass" sessions (Pete does the pedal steel honors throughout) Peter Frampton was so enamoured of Pete's unique sound that he gave the device to Frampton... yeah, you know the rest. I have no idea how many were made, but I can't imagine it was many. Handwork all the way through. But it just goes to show that you never know what's going to turn up. I'll try and post a pic of this later on

Thanks again for all your kind words and messages. They are very much appreciated.